THE final indignity, for the quarterback and for the football team, came with three minutes and 47 seconds remaining in one of the most desultory afternoons Giants Stadium has ever seen, fourth down, four yards to go, maybe 4,000 masochists still chained to their chairs at the Meadowlands.
Eli Manning took the snap and was in full retreat at once, looking like Fran Tarkenton in his declining years, doubling back from the oncoming rush, then doubling back again, trying to run away from the Minnesota Vikings and maybe from this full, frightful nightmare of a football game. Twenty-six yards away from the line of scrimmage, the Vikings’ Ben Leber finally caught him.
You waited for a good, sustained boo to rain down.
Then realized there weren’t enough voices left in the stadium to generate one.
“That, right there, just wasn’t meant to be,” was how Michael Strahan described the way the Vikings splattered the Giants against their windshield, a 41-17 thrashing that not only sucked the life out of a Thanksgiving Sunday but also put a wicked dent in the season, as well.
It was that bad. It was that unsightly. There will be all manner of hand wringing and finger pointing toward No. 10, and there’s little doubt that Manning played one of the most egregious games a New York quarterback has ever played. You can’t throw four interceptions, three of them returned for touchdowns, and not draw the lion’s share of the loathing.
“I wasn’t very good today,” Eli said in his standard room-temperature voice.
But this isn’t all on the quarterback. This is on everyone. This is on a football team whose fatal flaw remains the same as it’s been for far too long, covering far too many seasons: they are far too susceptible to self-congratulation, far too quick to believe their own hype before they’re able to generate any real heat.
The Giants won a tough, rugged game in Detroit a week ago, and couldn’t have been more pleased with themselves afterward. It was a good win. It wasn’t a season-defining win. But they sure did chirp away loudly afterward. And sure seemed awfully proud of themselves.
And sure looked flatter than Kate Moss against the Vikings.
“We just got our butts beaten up out there,” running back Reuben Droughns said. “We didn’t come out prepared to play.”
“It felt lousy out there,” safety Gibril Wilson said.
“It was almost comical at times,” Strahan said.
No, what’s comical was the optimism that elevated the Giants’ hubris entering the game, a belief that if Dallas and Green Bay were NFC royalty, then the Giants were just a few steps behind, ready to take their hacks at the Cowboys and the Packers in January. After all, before yesterday, no one other than the certain No. 1 and No. 2 NFC seeds had beaten them
The Vikings? They were 4-6. They started a quarterback, Tarvaris Jackson, who has looked barely professional for most of the season. They were coming off a 34-0 smack-down in Green Bay. They were headed toward the kind of oblivion most of the NFC is familiar with.
And positively pummeled the peacock-proud Giants.
“Disappointed,” Tom Coughlin said, “is not a strong enough word.”
Yes: Manning was terrible. He was historically terrible.
But please do not forget the defense, which allowed Jackson to complete a 60-yard scoring pass to Sidney Rice on the second play of the game, which time and again let Jackson escape, which looked thoroughly disinterested in tackling Chester Taylor during his eight-yard scamper that gave the Vikings a 21-7 lead in the second quarter and officially alerted the 78,591 spectators that this was going to be a long, long day.
Do not forget the other members of the offense, which could never establish anything on the ground and dropped a half-dozen catchable balls on Manning, all of them before that point in the game when Manning realized the Vikings’ fingers were a whole lot sticker than his receivers’.
“This is a team game, and this loss is on the team,” Strahan said, correctly.
Now it’s on to Chicago, which regardless of season or record is never a good place to right yourself or to find yourself. Only that’s precisely what the Giants have to do, and quickly. Manning will have his share of torturous questions to answer on the unforgiving turf of Soldier Field. He won’t be the only one.